Tag Archives: crafts

Someone recently commented on the Pink Cover I had made for my planner and wanted to know how I did it. I made the Pink cover just over a year ago and used it for my 2014 planner and have reused it again this year for my new one, so this is a quick ‘how to’ showing you how I made it but you could use this for covering books/journals or ring binders like I originally did!

At the time I made my 2014 planner I really wanted a nice 4 ring folder, I prefer 4 rings as I feel it hold the paper in better and doesn’t make them swing about like a 2 ring sometimes does. However it seems all the lovely designs seemed to be on 2 ring folders so I found a plain black one that had 4 rings and decided to customise it by making a cover/sleeve/protector what ever you want to call it! When I originally made it I was kind of winging it, made a few mistakes etc… So this tutorial is for the second cover you see above and has eliminated the silly mistakes I made on the first one.

So lets go:

You will need

Fabric – a non-stretch fabric that isn’t too thin/fine. ( I have used IKEA fabric on both of these as I love the hard-wearing quality)
Scissors ( obviously )
Pencil
Tape Measure
Sewing Machine
Thread/Cotton (any colour will do matching/contrasting/neon wherever your creative flare takes you!)

An Iron and Ironing board(for pressing seams.. it makes it 10 times easier when sewing!)

And of course a book or folder or whatever you want to make a cover for!

I had bought this lovely new sketchbook, and although I love the yellow by the time I am done painting and doodling in it, it will probably look terribly dirty so I am making a dark cover for it so that it can keep its nice fresh yellowness while I work in it!

Step 1…. Lay out your fabric. You need to draw out the size of the folder and book you are making it for. There are no exact measurements really for this step, as it depends on the size of your book/file and it also depends on the width of the spine.

Step 2… Measure half of the front / back cover then add that to each side of the drawn out template…

These extra bits will end up being the bits where the covers slip into and hold the cover onto the book/folder.

Step 3… Now we need to cut out the template leaving a 1cm gap around 3 of the sides of the template and a 2cm – 1 inch gap on the top edge (Click below image to see in detail…the reason for this will be obvious later so make sure you do it)

Step 4… Pressing…. Now we need to press the edges before we sew.. I can assure you that this makes sewing it up so much easier so try not to skip this step..

On the 3 1cm edges…fold the fabric up and press on the pre-drawn template line.

On the top edge that has a 2cm or 1 inch seam allowance fold the edge down to the drawn line… not on the line.

Step 5… Once all 4 sides have been pressed, you need to get out your sewing machine, hook it all up and run a straight stitch around all 4 sides around a quarter – half a cm in from the edge of the fabric…

Step 6… Creating the pockets for the sleeves… put the book/folder in the middle of you fabric evenly spaced from the top and bottom of the fabric. The excess on the left and right will become the pockets, fold one side over and press firmly to make a bit of a crease. Then sew along the top and bottom to secure it in place

The reason we added an extra cm to the seam allowance in step 3 was to make the height of the fabric 1cm bigger than the folder/book for this stage. This gives us half a cm on the top and bottom to sew this step. On my first attempt of making the cover I didn’t leave an extra bit of seam allowance for this step and really struggled to get the cover on as it was super tight.

Taadaaa..

There we have it.. slot in your book/folder and away you go!!

I hope that was relatively simple to understand and if you have any comments or questions please post below!!

I know it has been a while but i have had a rather hectic few weeks/months! Between Finishing my FMP , photoshoots and getting ready for my degree show I have hardly had time to sleep let alone write a blog! So I apologise for that but I am here now!

I believe the last Uni Update I gave you, I was trying to decide what my next rug should be etc.. well I did that… and then another one I think? Then I have had two Photoshoots with them so I have some lovely pictures to share with you, I will add a selection but if you want to see more have a look on my website : http://kayleighmarieuk.wix.com/homeandtextiles

Floral Rug

Otter Rug

Fox Rug

Rabbit Rug

Together Rug

Small Floral Rug

There they all are!! What do you think? I had a really great time making them, it has made me kinda sad that I probably won’t get a chance to make any more for a few years. I have to try and save up money to buy my own equipment.

As well as the Rug Collection I had a large collection of designs that could be used for fabrics or wallpapers etc..

Setting everything up was fun, I had plenty of help from my friends and a first year helper!

Adriana helping me set up!

Planning out the space!

Rugs Ready to go!

It was a busy time for me, trying to set up and finish last minute things for my hand-in but it was worth it I suppose,

A very tired looking me after a very busy week!

My space + All my work/files/drrawings & Boards

I should be getting my grade for this project later on today! Exciting stuff. During the show we actually have much less on display so for the actual show it looked like this:

The show was really exciting! Opening night started quite slowly but when it picked up it was amazing! I got so many compliments as well as people interested in my work so all in all a great time! The show continued for the rest of the week and we had more visitors before we finally took down last friday. It has been a crazy crazy year and a hectic last few months so I am both sad yet glad it is over! Time for a well deserved break I think!!

As always its just another quick post to show you what I am up to… Super super busy at the moment but here are a few quick photos to show you the rugs I have been working on!!

My lovely rabbit rug…. i am really pleased with this rug, the quality of it is really great and the colours are just fab!!

This is another rug I am working on which is just florals… I still need to work out my next design… Perhaps something with my badger friend Walter here?? What do you think… lets put it to a vote (cast your vote in the comments below)

Just a quick post to link you to an online Press Kit I have put together for my last collection Alpine Adventures! I had to do this for a university assignment but thought a few of you might want to have a look!

I am happy to show you all my final collection as part of the 8 week project.. Alpine Adventure. I worked on this project for 3 weeks. I wrote a small statment for this one, I felt that it was important to explain that I was not trying to create this collection to have any hidden meanings or large conceptual ideas behind it, I created it for its purely for its aesthetics. It is quirky and a bit of fun, so here you go:

“Light Hearted but thoroughly loved original textile designs.

my interest is to create quirky and innocent alternatives to textile design. Creating light hearted and fun designs for textile home wares.
I am inspired by everyday items and quirky themes, considering but never restricted by trends; I create what I enjoy and enjoy what I create. ”

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I have only featured a few of the designs here in the visualisations, the rest can be seen below
I created each character to have their own personality I even know their favourite foods and their zodiac sign! The character you can see are Jack the bear, Lola the deer, Nigel the fox and June the bird!

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This collection I have really enjoyed making, I designed loads of different characters from the ones you see here which is a shame I didn’t get to use them all! I think I started to see my signature style returning in these designs, I felt as though I had lost it in the past year or so, it was nice to see it returning!

I would love to know what you all think of these designs as I am at a point where I need to decide what to carry forward into my final major project. Do you think these designs are buy-able in today’s market? Are they too childish? or are they just your cup of tea? I would really appreciate any feedback given!
Thanks Kayleigh x

My second collection for the 8 week project is Rugged Knit. I was combining elements of knitting into drawing which I then translated into Rugs! This project I did for one and a half weeks so it was really fast paced and quite exciting at the time!

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I did a lot of drawings from pieces of knit wear and knitted samples, used CAD to emphasize shapes before coming up with final designs to move into rugs.
I created one rug using two-tone… and a second using a carving tool to look like the cable knit on jumpers

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I really quite like these images and could see them working quite well commercially… as for these samples, the blue one I think I will keep and the cream one is going to my mum and dad, I think it will look quite nice in front of the fire this christmas!!

Here is a sample brochure of a few other designs and in various colours